Unrest in eastern Ukraine bears the "tell-tale signs" of Russian instigation,
says Washington - and Moscow will be punished

America threatened Russia with further sanctions on Sunday after accusing Moscow of being behind the latest bout of unrest in Ukraine.

The warning came as the Ukrainian government despatched special forces to dislodge pro-Russian gunmen who seized buildings in several cities in the east of the country over the weekend. In the ensuing clashes yesterday, at least one person was reported killed and several more wounded. The West fears that the violence, which Kiev blamed on pro-Russian “terrorists”, may give the Kremlin the excuse it needs to launch another Crimea-style landgrab.

Speaking on American television, Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, said the seizures of police and security stations in eastern Ukraine appeared to have been carried out with the help of Russian security forces.

Describing the attacks as “outrageous”, she said: “It has all the tell-tale signs of what we saw in Crimea. It’s professional, it’s coordinated...So certainly it bears the tell-tale signs of Moscow’s involvement.”

She made it clear that President Barack Obama would consider further sanctions against Russia if Moscow’s aggression continued, including measures designed to hit the energy, banking and mining sectors.

“I think we’ve seen that the sanctions can bite and if actions like the kind we’ve seen over the last few days continue, you’re going to see a ramping up of those sanctions,” Ms Power said.

Nato’s secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, added that many of the gunmen appeared to be carrying sophisticated weapons and wearing identical uniforms without insignia - just like the Russian troops who seized Crimea last month. He described it as a “grave development”.

The White House also announced that Joe Biden, the vice-president, would travel to Kiev next week. It refused to confirm or deny reports that John Brennan, the director of the CIA, had already entered Ukraine under a false name to hold discussions with the Kiev government.

The focus of the latest unrest is the city of Slavyansk, 90 miles from the Russian border, where masked gunmen siezed a police station and state security service building on Saturday, handing out the contents of the buildings’ armouries to pro-Russian crowds.

The picture on the ground on Sunday was confused. Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said that Ukrainian state security officer was killed and five were wounded during an “anti-terrorist” operation in Slavyansk, where Ukrainian military helicopters were seen. Other reports said the killings had taken place in fighting near the neighbouring town of Artemivisk, where local officials said another “armed confrontation” was under way.

A Russian news agency also reported that one pro-Moscow activist was killed in Slavyansk. Russian TV broadcast grainy footage of a man in black clothes, slumped against the door of a car, with a pool of blood between his legs and a rifle lying next to him.

In the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya, meanwhile, pro-Russian and pro-European supporters skirmished during demonstrations and counter-protests. Compared to Crimea, the population of eastern Ukraine is far more divided in on the question of becoming part of Russia, making the prospect for bloodshed far greater.

European Union foreign ministers are set to meet on Monday to decide what additional penalties to impose if Moscow continues to ignore the West’s warnings.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the Ukrainian opposition veteran who is running for next month’s presidential election, said the latest unrest was designed to give Russia bargaining power at talks in Switzerland on Thursday aimed at defusing the Ukraine crisis.

“There is an ulterior motive for this aggression, because in a few days there will be big negotiations in Geneva,” she said.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said Kiev was “demonstrating its inability to take responsibility for the fate of the country”. He warned that any use of force against Russian speakers “would undermine the potential for cooperation” at the talks.

Britain, however, blamed the fighting in eastern Ukraine firmly on Moscow. “Assumptions that Russia is complicit are inevitable as long as Moscow does not publicly distance itself from these latest lawless actions,” said a Foreign Office spokesman.